


screaming behind the glass

by DAZzle_10



Series: Trans Owen Farrell [5]
Category: Rugby RPF, Rugby Union RPF
Genre: Body Dysmorphic Disorder, Eating Disorders, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-07 21:20:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20316178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DAZzle_10/pseuds/DAZzle_10
Summary: It’s easier to get away with it when people don’t know how much he does. His dad can walk in on him in the middle of a set of press-ups and laugh it up when he doesn’t know that Owen has done twice as many behind closed doors. His mum can roll her eyes fondly when he lifts himself up to start some pull-ups if she doesn’t know that his core is still screaming from last night’s planking session.The darker side of pressure on athletes where nutrition and fitness are concerned - tied in with the added image issues of a trans person with dysphoria.I CANNOT EMPHASISE THIS ENOUGH: if the topics I have tagged might have an adverse effect on your mental or physical health, than please do not read this. It's not anicefic, it's not fluffy, it's just honest, and I'm very aware that it could be dangerous if proper care isn't taken. So... Please look after yourselves.(This doesn't exactly connect with the other pieces in this series, but it fits the series remit as a whole and was always intended to be a part of it, so...)





	screaming behind the glass

**Author's Note:**

> My survey for my 6th Form project, because I'ma keep plugging it, is:
> 
> https://forms.gle/Dhk454kZJDu53HaG8 
> 
> (Admittedly, the link is different, but it's the same form. You don't need any experience in sport or anything to fill it out.)

_198, 199, 200._

Owen lets himself collapse, then, pressing his forehead to the carpet beneath him as sweat beads across his back, his breath coming in short, sharp pants as his eyes squeeze tightly shut. For a moment, he allows himself to stay there, sucking harsh, scraping mouthfuls of air down his throat as if each breath could be his last, then decides that he’s rested too long, that he doesn’t – shouldn’t – need any more recovery time.

With a quiet grunt, he pushes up and away from the floor, bringing his feet in to plant underneath himself in one movement and pushing upwards, ignoring the rush of light-headedness that accompanies the action in favour of reaching for his bottle. There’s a headache forming, beneath the weary groan of over-exerted muscles, but already, a restless ache is forming too: a stabbing need for more work, for something new to run himself into the ground with.

Something about what he’s already doing isn’t enough – _can’t_ be enough – because nothing’s changing. He isn’t stronger, and there’s still fat clinging to him in all the wrong places, shadowing his cheeks, his stomach, his thighs. He doesn’t look _right_, nothing like he knows he should. Either he’s not working hard enough, or he’s eating too much, and he doesn’t know which. Maybe both.

He doesn’t know how much more he can cut back on food before it starts to get dangerous, though, or it starts to impact his performance. Certainly, he doesn’t think he’ll get away with it for much longer before his parents start to notice that something is up.

The thing is, Owen knows that this isn’t healthy. He knows he’s going through something more than a little fucked up, and he’s pretty sure he knows _what_ it is, too. It’s just that boys aren’t meant to have this problem, and as much as he knows he’s meant to tell someone, meant to get help, there’s something so incredibly addicting about forcing himself through it all anyway, pushing himself past his limits each day and surging immediately onwards to find new ones. Besides that, he _needs_ it. He isn’t going to make the right changes by taking the safe route.

So maybe he’s dizzy, and a little sick, and his stomach clenches around nothing. He’s got it under control, and he’s just using it as motivation, until he’s got to where he needs to be. Then, he’ll let it go, or he’ll talk to someone and get help.

If he doesn’t actually _know_ where he needs to be yet, that’s fine. He’ll know when he gets there, he’s sure of it. And if it starts to get bad – dangerous or life-threatening or something – he can stop.

If that’s just another of the lies he tells himself so that he doesn’t cave and tell someone _now_, before it gets too far, then he’s less worried than he probably should be. At the end of the day, he doesn’t want this sorted out, because he _needs_ those changes, more than anything. He doesn’t have all the control he wants over his body, so he’ll take what little he can with both hands.

As it is, he’s done his upper-body work for the day – and that’s more than double the goal he set for himself this morning, and likely will be more before he gets to bed – and he’s neglected his legs. His core is a whole different matter, but right now, he needs to burn off some of the fatty substance that clings to his thighs, rid himself of those traces of over-indulgence and weakness.

Glancing around to make sure that no one’s watching – although he knows no one is, and it _shouldn’t_ matter if they were, because he isn’t doing anything _wrong_ – he settles his feet a little wider, just below his shoulders, and lowers himself into his first squat, already wondering if there’s something he can use as an improvised weight.

So yeah, maybe this isn’t healthy, but it’s fine.

He’s fine.

It’s a good half-hour later that he slumps against the wall of his bedroom, breathing harsh and ragged as his head swims, his vision blurring, and he has to lift his hand to nurse his forehead because _shit_, it hurts. The smooth surface beneath his cheek is cool, and he turns his head a little, pressing more of his face against the wall to let it drain the heat from his skin, until it no longer works well enough.

Then, slowly, he sits down on his bed, burying his face in his aching palms and drawing in deeper breaths to calm himself. For some time, he thinks it’s enough – that he’s managed to work his restlessness from his system, that the agitation has left his bones for good, if only for today.

He’s wrong, as always.

Despite the itching in his limbs and the antsy twitch of his fingers, he forces himself to stand up and turn off the light, hesitating briefly as he eyes the stretch of clear floor space – just a little longer than his body, a little wider than his shoulders – but managing to cross it without any further pause and slip under the covers to sleep. Really, his light should have been off an hour ago, but…

It’s easier to get away with it when people don’t know how much he does. His dad can walk in on him in the middle of a set of press-ups and laugh it up when he doesn’t know that Owen has done twice as many behind closed doors. His mum can roll her eyes fondly when he lifts himself up to start some pull-ups if she doesn’t know that his core is still screaming from last night’s planking session. His sisters… They wouldn’t know that anything was wrong anyway.

All they know is that he doesn’t play with them so much, these days.

For some time, he lies awake, staring blankly into the darkness as pain pulses behind his eyes. He hasn’t done _enough_, he’s sure of it. He’s eaten more than he should have today, and sure, he’s done more exercise than usual to make up for it, but he managed that and can still move well enough, so surely, he should be doing that normally, and even more to make up for days like this.

Suddenly, inexplicably, his eyes sting with tears. Squeezing them tightly shut, he sucks in several harsh lungfuls of oxygen, then opens them to the blackness around him and slips out of bed once more, down to the floor to plant his hands beneath his shoulders, his feet stretched out behind himself.

_Just 20 more_, he tells himself, _Then bed._

It doesn’t work out that way, of course; he does his 20, and then he’s left, staring at the floor he cannot see, the invisible hands that ache and tremble against rough carpet, feeling as empty and desolate as ever.

_Just 10 more, then._

Owen doesn’t remember getting to bed in the end, but he must have done, because he wakes up with sore arms and a pounding head, far too comfortable and very much aware that he needs to run, to distract himself from the ache in his stomach. For some time, however, he continues to lie in the silence, aware despite himself that it’s too early to justify that sort of thing.

Instead, he has to wait as the seconds tick by – sometimes minutes when he drifts back into a hazy doze – always too aware of his body and the shapes it makes, the _wrongness_ to its curves and softness.

_This_ is what his hard work will solve. He won’t have to lie here and feel sick at the mere brush of his arm or the duvet across his chest, and his legs will fit together properly. He won’t feel ashamed of himself from the minute he wakes up in the morning, and he won’t hate himself that little bit more at the mere thought that he’s going to have to eat _something_ for breakfast, if only so that he has the energy for his exercise.

If there’s one reason he really hates holidays, it’s this – the lack of distraction from his own imperfections, the need to make up for it all that grows with each passing day, the increased urge to hide away from relatives who can’t – or won’t – adjust their view of him that limits his ability to sate need for exercise to what he can do in that small patch of floor besides his bed, until he sums up the courage to slink past them for the door in running kit.

But once he’s got to where he needs to be, it will all be easier to handle. Once he’s there, all he’ll have to do will be maintain it.

The restlessness is growing, more and more, and he knows that he doesn’t have the strength to do exercise right now – won’t until he’s had breakfast – but he stumbles out of bed anyway and kneels on the carpet, a parody of prayer to some unknown god. As if that would ever help him.

Eyes stinging through the light, pulsing ache in the forefront of his skull, he settles forward onto his hands and places his feet back, lowering himself down into _1, 2, 3…_

His head swims, and he has to stop, gasping for breath as the stinging in his eyes sharpens to a burn. Swaying onto his hands and knees, empty and hollow in both body and mind, he turns his face into his arm to block out the streaks of dawn light just starting to pierce his curtains, then resettles himself and keeps going. 10, and then he’ll be fine.

10, and he can find himself some breakfast to do some more.

_12, 13, 14…_

He didn’t even notice getting past 10. He just… He just…

Gritting his teeth, he pushes onwards to 20, and shoves down the faint sense of triumph at the thought that he’s done even more work than he set out to do. He’s got much more to do today; this is nothing, really. If he can get in another 10 after breakfast, maybe some squats while he brushes his teeth, another 10 afterwards… and then he’ll be alright for his run.

His exercises are starting to blur together. He’s not sure how many he’s done, never mind of what, and his head swims a little, his eyes struggling to focus sometimes. That’s fine, though, because it will all pay off in the end as long as his parents don’t notice. So far, he’s done a good job of acting normally. Now, though, there’s a problem.

He’s eaten too much, he knows. He’s definitely eaten too much, and the thought of it all seeping into his bloodstream, slowly reversing his hard work, leaves him feeling sick, panicked. He needs to do more exercise, but he’ll never get enough in to make up for this; it’s a setback, and he’ll have to start avoiding lunch altogether if he can’t reign himself in. So maybe it was less than he’d normally eat, than any of the rest of his family ate.

They don’t have to worry about this – not like him. And what he used to eat was too much, anyway; that much is obvious.

It’s too much, is the bottom line, and all he can think is that he needs to find a way of stopping it from undoing everything he’s grafted for. He needs it gone, but there’s nothing he can do. There’s no way to reverse what he’s done, not now that it’s happened, and he’s not going to resort to sticking fingers down his throat.

He’s not.

But if he did it just this once, it could teach him a lesson, so that he’d never have to do it again. No one would know. He could go to the bathroom, put a tap on to drown out the sound, then rinse his mouth out afterwards. That’s all. It’d be fine.

Maybe it would be a little uncomfortable, but no pain, no gain. It will all pay off in the end.

For some time, he sits on his mattress – he escaped to his bedroom to avoid having to eat even more than he already had – and considers his options, trying desperately to make his half-hearted effort to persuade himself not to do this more convincing. He can’t, really. He’s already set on it, can feel that familiar pull to go and get it sorted before it’s too late, just like with his exercise.

It’s just once. It can’t do any harm.

Slowly, he pushes himself up with hands that shake a little – from nerves or exhaustion, he can’t tell – and reaches for his bottle, fighting with his urge to sneak more than he needs to. He’s just going to the bathroom. There’s nothing to worry about there. That’s normal.

He puts the shower on, in the end, because that seems like a more believable excuse than just washing his hands for however long this is going to take. Taking a shower seems so reasonable, in fact, that he makes up his mind to really have one after this. Maybe he’ll feel better once he’s clean.

Anxiety mixes with anticipation as he kneels in front of the toilet; his fingers tremble as he lifts them to his mouth, and he almost, in that moment, backs out. He’s come too far, though, to stop now.

It takes him several attempts to stick his fingers down far enough, and it’s so much worse than he expected, his stomach clenching and his lungs tightening as he chokes on burning acid, his cheeks on fire as tears sting his eyes. He has to do it several times to be sure that it’s all out, and by the end, he’s wavering even on his knees, tears running down his heated cheeks as his lips quiver, surprised that there’s any liquid left to drip down his chin with bitter saliva.

He doesn’t feel up to it, but he staggers to his feet and reaches for the sink, washing his hands and then his mouth, reaching only for his bottle when his face has been rinsed and the sour taste of semi-digested food is gone. A flush of the toilet, and there’s no more evidence.

Slowly, he tugs his t-shirt over his head, his top coming after it; he avoids looking at his chest, but he can see it all at the bottom of his vision regardless. Quivering hands shove his shorts down his too-thick thighs, his pants coming with them, and his tears have dried up, but he feels more like crying than ever.

His head hurts.

Gingerly, he steps into the shower spray. It’s too hot, scalding every inch of his skin that it falls upon, but he still feels cold, shivering a little as he hunches in on himself, the fire under his skin replaced by a chill of ice that nothing seems to chase away. It’s with numb hands that he picks up the soap, starting to wash away the remains of the last day or so and maybe these most recent ten minutes with it.

When his hands run over his chest, he flinches, shutting his eyes once more to block it all out, and tries to tell himself that it’s fine, that he’ll get rid of it all soon. Most of it is muscle anyway, but when not all of it is, he struggles to remember that fact at all.

Already, he knows this won’t be the only time.


End file.
